


Sirens In the Beat of Your Heart

by pepsicola



Category: South Park
Genre: Based on "Getaway Car", Criminal AU, M/M, Title is a lyric from "Getaway Car" by Taylor Swift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 22:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17775704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepsicola/pseuds/pepsicola
Summary: Running gets you nowhere good.





	1. Chapter 1

 

**No, nothing good starts in a getaway car**

**It was the best of times, the worst of crimes**  
**I struck a match and blew your mind**  
**But I didn't mean it**  
**And you didn’t see it**  
**The ties were black, the lies were white**  
**And shades of grey in candlelight**  
**I wanted to leave him**  
****I needed a reason** **

* * *

They say the best of times happen before you have to commit your worst of crimes as a form of revenge God brings upon you for all the pain and destruction you caused in the world...

****  
** **

I delicately hold the match between thumb and forefinger. I share a look with my partner in crime, Craig Tucker, a sly smile spreading over my lips as easily as melted butter. Without taking my eyes off him, I strike the match. The flame shoots up from the red igniter, casting a dim orange glow over our faces in the dying daylight. It wavers in the spring air. Some of my colleagues say I’m stupid for doing my work when the sun’s still up, but I learned from the best of the best that the coppers aren’t as alert when the sunlight’s there to scare us criminals away.

I drop the matchstick onto the trail of gasoline we strategically spilt near our toes. A line of fire surges forward, licking its way up to the bank behind us. I mimic the sound of an explosion, flames dancing in my eyes.

As I pocket the matchbook, Craig rolls his green eyes. Behind his mask, I can hear the grin in his voice as he chuckles, “You always find a new way to blow my mind.”

My smile falters ever so slightly. _I never meant to_ , I think as we casually walk back to our car. We have a few seconds before the bank gets blown to bits. I’m very calculated and careful with this stuff. I know what I’m doing. _I never meant to make you fall in love with me, but you refuse to admit to yourself that I didn’t mean it. Just like how I refuse to admit to myself that I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with you too._

“I like being dramatic,” I say instead.

Craig gets into the driver’s seat as I climb into the passenger’s. I sling the cliche sack of money to the backseat. The car—the getaway car—smells like Cheetos and pine since we stole it from the neighborhood my parents reside in this morning. He sticks the keys in the ignition and backs out of the parking lot. The keys were left on the floor of the car like the driver had to suddenly up and leave. I ignore the remaining cars parked in the lot and try not to think about the lives we’re taking for our benefit.

We drive onto the road, the 2009 Nissan Altima purring beneath our feet. We have to get as far away from the bank as we can for obvious reasons. I glance up at the rear view mirror, waiting for my favorite part. With an ear splitting boom, the bank goes up in flames, debris flying in all directions. My mom works there—or used to since it’s rubble now—despite being a criminal herself. She gave us the key and combos to the locks yesterday, as long as I promised to split half the money with her. I will. After all, Craig and I robbed those safes clean. We probably have a two hundred thousand bucks sitting in the backseat. It’s not like this is the first bank I’ve ever cleaned out either. I’ll have my mom deal it out when we get home. She’s good with numbers.

I peel my mask off my face with a relieved sigh. I stare down at the object in my hands. It’s made of papier-mâché, authentic Venetian, painted shades of a sunset—despite my eyes being the color of a blue-green night sky speckled with stars, according to Craig. The edges of the half-face mask are lined with topaz, winking in the sunbeams filtering in through the dirty windshield. The careful strokes of reds and yellows and oranges are all hand painted. This thing’s impressive and stunning enough to have fallen from the sky itself. This very mask is known around the country, forever implanted in the minds of cops especially. The obvious inspiration of the mask is sunset. Sunset is when some of my best jobs are done. It’s how I earned my nickname, Dying Sunlight. I hate it, considering how gay it sounds, but it has an ominous touch to it, so it’s not so bad.

I tuck the fragile mask into the backpack at my feet. Can’t have any snoopy police glancing in through the window and seeing it on my lap. It’d be time in the cells all over again. If I do get taken in again, it won’t last just a couple days like it did last time. I turn to Craig, who still has his own mask on. Unlike mine, his mask is blue, influenced by Incan tribal masks. It’s not the real deal, with gold and precious stones, but made of papier-mâché and paint instead. It looks real enough to be stolen from the temples of Incan chiefs. And I should know. I reach my gloved hand up and lift the mask from his face, exposing his olive skin and a long, straight nose.

I push the hood of his navy blue sweatshirt off his head before I lean over and press a kiss to his cheek.

“Today was fun,” I say, putting his mask in with mine. “We made good business.”

He snorts at that. “Business?” he echoes. “If you say so.” He pauses to place a gloved hand on my knee. I take my own gloves off, then his. I’m careful about fingerprints. They can track you through your simple mistakes. I’ve been in this gig for five years, which is long enough to know to cover up anything that could get you recognized. “Wanna get something to eat? I was thinking that fancy, rich-people restaurant on Main Street.”

“Restaurants with chandeliers and waiters in tuxedos doesn’t mean it’s fancy,” I say. I drop the gloves into my backpack.

“What you said just now makes no sense, honey. Waiters in tuxedos are _very_ fancy.”

“We don’t have anything fancy to wear ourselves,” I retort. Yes, I’m hungry, but we just robbed a bank. I don’t want to risk being caught, even if the cops have never seen our faces. Well, not true. Two have, but one is too blind to make the connection, and the other is too corrupt to admit my face to his comrades.

Craig’s arm travels up to my shoulders and stays there. He pulls me into his side. I bury my face in the crook of his neck. Warmth spreads around my insides, melting me in my green Converse. He proposes, “We rent some tuxes, and drop off the car on the way.”

“By ‘rent’, you mean steal, and by ‘drop off’, you mean ditch. We have stolen tuxes at home. I need to give the money to my mom anyway. Then we can get something to eat,” I decide.

Craig sighs. “You always take the fun out of everything,” he grumbles, more jokingly than serious. He kisses my temple either way.

So we do. I give the money to my mother, who counts it all in ten minutes. We keep a hundred thousand, while she keeps her share. I divide the remaining money between me and Craig, planning on depositing the amount in our mattress store. We launder our money there, like most criminals, so if a cop ever searches my house, they won’t find wads of money stuffed in the cushions of my pillows and chairs.

We change into the tuxes, ditching the car close to where we found it. We leave no trace of us ever being there, taking our belongings and our stolen items. We don’t worry about our fingerprints on the door handles or steering wheel. The car had been rotting, parked on the sidewalk for two years, untouched. I pay attention to meticulous details. Half of it is my paranoia, the other being the perfectionist criminal side.

We drop off our money at the mattress store. Wendy Testaburger, a close friend who I trust with my life, much less my money, sends us off with a knowing smile that an outsider might translate as friendly. Craig hails a taxi that takes us to the fancy restaurant, appropriately named Diamonds for Dinner. By now, the sun is gone and the moon takes its place. The plaza buzzes with life.

Craig pushes open the glass doors that lead into the restaurant, holding them open for me. I give him a nod of thanks as I walk in. The clink of silverware on plates and murmuring voices floods my senses. The lights are low, everything cast in shades of gray, illuminated by candlelight. We’re seated at a table for two, our orders taken. The waiter in his fancy tux doesn’t recognize us in the slightest. We wait for our food, holding idle conversation, laughing behind our hands. I laugh particularly loudly, and the husband of a couple a few tables from ours shoots us a dirty look. His wife places her hand on his when she notices us two boys on our date. She mutters an apology to us, fixing her husband’s attention on her once more.

Being a gay couple, people pointedly try not to stare to make us feel unwanted, but I feel the quick glances of the older couples. The young ones are used to the change, while the elderly are having a hard time adjusting. All the better.

Everyone here is wearing suits and dresses. Women have jewels at their throats, men with hair slicked back. I can’t help but feel out of place with my wild blonde hair sticking up in every direction. Even Craig fixed his hair, the treacherous bastard.

I gaze at Craig over the flickering flame dancing on its wick. He talks about space and the wonders of the constellations. One day, I’ll make sure he gets to the stars and dances through the Milky Way. He holds my hand across the tabletop, green eyes glittering in their own starlight. I rub my thumb over his skin, a ghost of a smile on my lips, listening to his story, taking in his dream-like features. He lights up when talking about space, so I bring up the topic often.

I love him more than anything. I can’t deny it.

Yet slowly, my mind slips to another time, replacing the image in front of me with an old one, where another boy sat in front of me, holding my hand throughout the dinner we shared. Back then, we ate at a bustling McDonald’s, stuffing our cheeks with nuggets and fries. We laughed loudly and freely, nobody sending us disapproving looks. That boy had honey-blonde hair instead of midnight black. His eyes were violet, not green. He had freckles on his white skin over tan Peruvian skin. Things were different then, five years ago.

So much had changed in that span of time. I wasn’t fleeing the streets, hunted by the police, my face unknown. Five years ago, I was normal. I had a normal job as a barista, working at Starbucks, going to college to be an engineer. Five years ago, I had no idea I would end up following in my parents’ footsteps. Five years ago, I was dating that violet-eyed, honey-blonde, freckled boy named Kenny McCormick. Five years go, similar to today, we were on a date, but at McDonald’s.

Kenny howled with laughter. He clutched his middle, water spilling past his lips. I wrinkled my nose at the sight, disgusted by him, but smiling too.

Kenny met my eyes, his grin from pierced ear to pierced ear slipping into an easy smile. “I wish I could’ve taken you somewhere fancier,” he said, “but alas, I can only afford fast food restaurants.”

“At least the coffee’s good,” I said. I sipped from my cup, a smile of my own playing on my mouth.

“Don’t worry, coffee bean. When I’m out of school and have that job as a cop, we’ll be set for life. We’ll be eating off of marble plates instead of recycled paper,” Kenny said. He was always so sure of himself, and I admired him for it.

But my smile twitched as I lowered my cup. At the time, I was well aware of my family’s whereabouts. I knew they stole and robbed and killed when they had to, but they were my family still. They told me dating an aspiring policeman was a risk to them when they found out what he wanted to do with his life. I knew that. And I loved Kenny, but only three months after that date, I wasn’t all that happy being with him anymore. I think it was the fear that he would sniff out my parents is what killed the passion. So that’s why I needed a reason to leave him, and I eventually found one.

“Marble pates, huh? Why not gold? I’m sure you could afford it as a cop,” I said. I did my best to keep the warble out of my voice.

Kenny leaned over from his side of the table to plant a kiss on my lips. He chucked my chin as he sat back down. “I love you, Tweek,” he murmured, words for only me to hear.

I bit down on my grin. “I love you too, Kenny.”

“Tweek?”

I’m reading Craig’s lips as he forms my name, but I hear Kenny’s voice come out of his mouth. I blink myself back into the present. Craig sits in front of me. Craig, with black hair, green eyes, straight nose, long legs, tan skin. Craig, my boyfriend, the boy I’m in love with. The one who I would ride into the distance with, sitting in whichever dingy getaway car we hotwired.

“Hmm?” is all I can muster. The haze of the memory still lingers over my head.

Worry is etched on Craig’s features now, his eyebrows stitched together in concern. He knows me so well that he can tell in a single glance when I’m out of it. “Is something wrong, babe?” he asks. He brings my hand up to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles.

I sigh. “Just tired,” I lie. I hate lying to him, but he can’t know what I’m really thinking about.

Craig opens his mouth to press further, but our food is placed in front of us before a word can slip past his lips. The conversation is dropped and a new one is picked up. We eat our fancy, rich-people food, laughing and enjoying each other’s company, and Kenny McCormick is erased from my mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**X marks the spot where we fell apart**  
**He poisoned the well I was lying to myself**  
**I knew it from the first Old Fashioned we were cursed**  
**We never had a shotgun shot in the dark**

* * *

Kenny McCormick was a flirt, but that wasn’t the reason why we fell apart.

His childhood wasn’t easy. He spent his life eating Pop Tarts throughout the day to hold back his hunger. His parents fought all the time. He didn’t want his future kids to have to experience that, but at that moment, he was more set on getting his sister into his custody, away from his parents. Kenny was a good person with good intentions. So really, it was understandable why he wanted to work hard for a good job that paid well.

Our romantic relationship started simply.

I was sixteen, junior year coming to a close. I was punching in the order of a customer at the Starbucks I worked at. She was a regular. She even knew me by name. She was middle aged, with brown hair always pulled back in a bun. She finished up her order—she was intent on telling me even though I memorized it—and left the counter to wait for her drink.

The next customer walked up. I didn’t look up to avoid the horrors of eye contact, saying, “What can I get you today?”

“I’ll have a tall mocha frap, please.”

The voice was as familiar as my own. I looked up. Standing in front of me was Kenny McCormick, my 5'11, freckled best friend. He worked with me at the Starbucks on Mondays and Thursdays. It was a Friday, his day off. He flashed me a gap-toothed grin that made passing girls in the hallways swoon.

“See something you like, Tweek?” he teased.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I forced down the pink threatening to invade my cheeks. “Will that be all, _sir_ ?” I asked. I was working, and I wasn’t about to fall into one of Kenny’s traps. He flirted with me a lot, but he flirted with everybody. I wasn’t about to be bedded then left like all those stupid girls. Even if I did want that, deep down. Just not the _to be left_ part.

Kenny chuckled, leaning in closer than he needed to be. Yet I didn’t pull back like I would anyone else. “Aww, c’mon, Tweek. Lemme buy you a coffee. I’ll pay.” I was about to shake my head when more words poured out of his mouth. “Look, I didn’t just come here for coffee. Well, I mean, I did, but I also wanted to see you, talk to you. I’ve always thought you were cool, and I wanna get to know you better—not just in a platonic way,” he blurted.

I raised an eyebrow. He looked so desperate, his freckled cheeks flushed red, captivating eyes wide. Kenny was my best friend, and I knew he didn’t just confess to anyone like a lovestruck schoolgirl. He was smooth and suave, never tripping over his words. But that day he did.

My mind was dumb enough to believe he was intimidated by me, anxious for my answer, even if we’d been friends since middle school.

“Fine, Kenny,” I said. “Let me get your drink first.” I did what I said, then I told my coworker I was going on break.

Kenny led me to a table for two by the window. He messed with his shirt in a nervous way that I knew well. Maybe I wasn’t so dumb to think he was antsy because of me. I sat in front of him, sipping from a cup of coffee of my own. The warmth of the beverage spread throughout my system, bringing a soft smile to my face.

Kenny cleared his throat. “So,” he said.

“So,” I echoed.

He met my eyes, leaving me staring into his beautiful violet irises. Heat not from the coffee settled on my skin, and I felt a blush creep up my neck. Kenny was admittedly good-looking, with his eyes and freckles and his charming gap-toothed smile.

He sent that charming smile my way, and the blush reached my cheeks. His fingers drummed on the table, an action I again saw in myself. “This is gonna sound weird coming from me, and I know you don’t trust easily, but trust me when I say I really like you. I always have. You’re cool, smart, cute. I know I don’t have a trustworthy background with all those girls, but I don’t feel the way for them I do for you. So, I’m just trying to ask if you’ll go out with me,” he said, words strained.

I blinked. Never in my lifetime had anyone ever thought I was _cute_ or cool. It was flattering. Yes, I had noticed the fact that he hadn’t been with a girl—or anyone—for all of junior year. Maybe those glances and smiles he sent my way weren’t as platonic as I’d thought.

And even though I convinced myself the looks were platonic, I chose not to believe my own thoughts. I resorted to lying to myself. Because I liked Kenny, and I hated how I did. He was untouchable, with all those girls that always hung off his arm. But I still wanted him. I couldn’t help it. He was everything I wanted, in myself and in a partner. I _needed_ him.

So when he asked me to go on a date with him, I stood and reached across the table, grabbing his shirt, and pressed a hard kiss on his mouth. He kissed back, melting into me. When I pulled away, I muttered, “Took you long enough.”

Not long after that day, we got closer than I imagined possible, our souls intertwining, becoming one. I helped him pay for college, and he helped me through my anxiety and paranoia for the simple fact that we loved each other.

After senior year, we went to different colleges, but neither of us had to move away to attend. My parents’ “job” paid well, so I was set. That along with my scholarship in robotics. Kenny was from a poor family, and not even all that time working with me at Starbucks was enough to pay for school. So I helped him with it, paying his way to college before it was too late. When I told him, he scolded me for dumping all my money on him, that I “ _didn’t have to do this,_ ” but as he vented to me, his voice cracked and his eyes got watery, until his tears finally spilled over. I gathered him in my arms, crying happy tears with him, holding him as he tried to compose himself. He held my face in his rough hands, gazing at me lovingly. He peppered my face with butterfly kisses, and I laughed.

I found out he wanted to be a cop, and I won’t lie and say I was excited. I knew my parents were criminals, and even though they did bad things, it didn’t mean I wanted them in prison so they could leave me to fend for myself. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed my parents.

From then, I knew we were cursed. Our relationship was like trying to hit your target with a shotgun in pure darkness from that day on.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

**You were driving the getaway car**  
**We were flying, but we'd never get far**  
**Don't pretend it's such a mystery**  
**Think about the place where you first met me**  
**Riding in a getaway car**  
**There were sirens in the beat of your heart**  
**Should've known I'd be the first to leave**  
**Think about the place where you first met me**

**In a getaway car**  
**No, they never get far**  
****No, nothing good starts in a getaway car** **

* * *

Craig sits at the wheel of our freshly stolen getaway car, a pair of black sunglasses atop his nose. The top is down, the early June wind rushing over us, ruffling my already ruffled hair. I turn up the radio, singing along to whatever song my ears pick up through the whistling wind. Outside, empty fields blur past us as we fly on the warm air, birds of prey escaping our hunters. White, wispy clouds drift through the blue sky. The sun shines down brightly on the world around us.

In our city, the wealthy reside on the outskirts of town because they think they can escape the massive amounts of robberies of the city if they’re farther away from it all. They go into the city for work and to eat and stuff, but they wouldn’t dare _live_ in the heart. It’s just too risky. Rich people are dumb though, because separating themselves from the middle to lower class makes it easier for us crooks to steal all their shit. They _were_ smart enough to build the police and fire stations within a mile of their living quarters, and that reason alone is what keeps all us bad guys away. Even still, the crime rate is more reliable than the authority. The city’s practically run by thieves and murderers. The wealthy can’t escape that by distancing themselves.

But Craig and I are both idiots with enough bravado to dabble around the silver streets, swiping what we can. That’s why we’re headed out to one of the more affluent shopping districts in the area.

I unbuckle my seat belt, standing on my seat, letting the wind beat against my face as I rise to my feet. I close my eyes, lifting my arms from my sides. Wind blows through the spaces between my splayed out fingers. I picture myself flying through crystal blue skies, bursting through cotton candy clouds, with Craig at my side, feeling the air against our skin. I picture our hair being swept back from our foreheads, clothes billowing out and fluttering around us. I picture this every time we hotwire a convertible. Us, birds of prey, wings spread out, completely weightless, as we soar through the sky. But these daydreams of mine never get far. My daydreams never get past the heat of the moment.

Craig shakes my leg, telling me by touch that we’re getting close. I plunk back into my seat, gazing at my disheveled appearance in the rearview mirror. I run my fingers through my hair. It does nothing. My sunflower blonde locks just bounce straight up again. The rush of air coursing around us slows as Craig pulls into the pristine parking lot of an outdoor mall, two spaces away from a vacant white Tesla. The place might as well be empty with all the open spots, but it won’t last long. It’s a Wednesday, almost five thirty, when everyone would be coming home from their long, boring days at work, and some will stop by to go on a shopping spree with all the money they have to spend. The outlet mall towers above us, the beige paint vibrant and new, glass clean and shining in the yellow beams of sunlight and lamplight. He presses a button, and the top begins to close. We get out of the car. I cast a glance at Craig as we hoist our backpacks onto our shoulders. He wears a blue hoodie, a matching patterned blue chullo covering his luxurious black hair that I love to run my fingers through. His green eyes reflect the golden glow of the lights surrounding us. He’s otherworldly. His sharp jawline juts out, mouth smiling when he notices me staring. He looks up at me and raises an eyebrow. It’s enough to make my insides turn to mush.

I avert my gaze, convincing myself that if I’m not looking at him he won’t be able to see my pink cheeks. “Ready?” I ask. The wind sweeps my hair to the side, cooling my face. I walk around to his side of the car.

He snakes an arm around my waist and kisses the top of my head. He says, “Yup.”

When going into a mall made for rich people, all the designer stores lined up beside each other, displaying their expensive products in the windows. Only a few people mill about. Mostly women with Louis Vuitton purses and diamonds encircling their necks and wrists. It’s a criminal’s wet dream. One woman around thirty, talking to someone on the other end of her phone, passes us, and I slide her bracelet off her wrist of her free hand in one fluid motion. She doesn’t even glance my way.

Craig bites back a smirk when he sees me slip the bracelet into my backpack. I stare up at him, pinching his side. He flinches away from me, chuckling. I tease, “What? Got something to say to my face, loverboy?”

Craig dips his head and drops an unexpected kiss on my lips. “No, but I’d rather kiss your face, if that’s fine with you,” he says. The corner of his mouth tilts up.

I roll my eyes and scrunch up my nose. “God, you’re so cheesy,” I gag, but still, a blush blooms on my cheeks and up my neck.

Craig ruffles my hair, and I lean into his side. We come up to a jewelry store squished between a Michael Kors and an Armani. I snort at all of the people in the name brand stores, and the lack of so in the jewelry store. Past the glittering displays in the front windows, a single man slouches behind the counter, a bored look on his face. I exchange a look with Craig. With a slight nod, he disappears into an empty hallway that leads to the bathrooms. I stand by and wait. An alarm goes off and Craig returns, impassive as ever.

Bells blare, ringing loudly in my ears, and the sprinklers turn on overhead. People start screaming, running for the nearest exit, hands over their heads. They shove past us as they flow out the doors. The fire department will be here soon. We have to hurry. Craig and I put on our masks and dart into the jewelry store. People are so blinded by their panic that they don’t notice us. The man in the jewelry store is rounding the counter, about to leave with everyone else, but he looks up at us and freezes. He puts his hands in the air and slowly backs up.

“Please,” he begs, voice drowned out by the alarms. “Take whatever you want, but please let me live.”

I glance at Craig, tilting my head ever so slightly at him. He nods back and reveals a gun hidden in his jacket. The man whimpers. Craig lifts his arm and shoots all the security cameras facing us. They shatter into pieces. He points the gun to the ground, then levels it with the man’s chest. The man gets the message and lowers to his knees. I smash open the glass cases with the butt of my own gun that was tucked in the waistband of my jeans. I move swiftly, snatching up as much sparkly jewelry as my hands can manage. The diamonds wink, cold and smooth beneath my fingertips. I stuff them into my backpack, striding over to the counter. Craig ties the man’s hands behind his back as he continues to beg for his life.

I pull out a pill bottle from the smallest pocket of my backpack. I approach the man as I twist open the cap. Tears stream down his cheeks. Craig moves to the side, pointing the gun to the man’s head. I yank open the man’s mouth, stuffing in one of the pills. I snap his mouth shut. As soon as his lips seal, his eyes begin to cloud over, the color draining from his face. He slumps over.

I remind myself that he’s just unconscious, not dead, as Craig and I race out of the mall. There’s no time to ransack any other stores. We burst through the glass doors of the mall, sprinting for the parking lot. We hop into the getaway car. Craig has it on in an instant and we speed away from our crime scene.

****  
** **

Craig and I first met in a getaway car on a fateful May night. I had been running from the law for almost three years when I was arrested. But I was released, and hopped into an ancient red 1967 Ford Mustang convertible as instructed. Sitting in the passenger seat as my driver took off, I got my first look at him through the green and red lights lining the street. From the moment he met my eyes, I knew I’d fallen into a deadly trap as any.


	4. Chapter 4

**It was the great escape, the prison break**  
**The light of freedom on my face**  
**But you weren’t thinking**  
**And I was just drinking**  
**Well, he was running after us,** **I was screaming, "Go, go, go!"**  
**But with three of us, honey, it's a sideshow**  
**And a circus ain't a love story**  
**And now we’re both sorry**

* * *

Our cell was cold and damp, and had a permanent smell of urine. My bed was hard as rock. The food, I was sure, wasn’t edible, so I avoided eating it. My orange jumpsuit was scratchy and used. Someone—some other criminal—probably died in that thing. I’d only been there for barely four days, and I despised it.

My partner did too. His fists were balled at his sides, knuckles white, chest heaving up and down. His teeth were bared as he seethed on his own bedrock. I could’ve sworn his freckled face was glowing as red as his curly hair. I watched him from my perch on my pillow, afraid to touch anything that might have a disease, which was probably everything.

My hands shook, my muscles tense, my head twitching to the side occasionally. Nerves racked my entire body, and I couldn’t help but let the dark thoughts flood through the gates. Yet I had enough in me to tell Kyle, “Calm down, man. You’ll pop a vein.” I shuddered at the thought.

Kyle glanced at me and expelled a breath. He rubbed his temples, groaning. He hissed, “This is my fault we’re in here in the first fucking place. I knew I should’ve left sooner! I shouldn’t have gone back for my gun. You told me to leave it and I should’ve listened. I was so insistent of clearing up all the evidence that I fucking forgot about the cops on our tail.”

I sighed and left the safety my pillow. I crossed over to him and patted his back. I didn’t tell him anything because I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell him it wasn’t his fault because it kind of was. He groaned again and leaned into me, releasing his fists to let his hands rest on his thighs.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

I nodded, words stuck in my throat. Kyle had been my partner since I started out as a full time criminal at twenty years old, which begun with me dropping memory pills into people’s drinks at Starbucks. He found out I was planting the drugs in the drinks of the customers at the Starbucks I worked at, and he sort of blackmailed me into helping him with his crimes. We kept the alliance up, and that led to us being arrested together.

Kyle stayed slumped against me, his sweaty forehead resting on my collarbone. He was my friend as well as partner, and I would be there for him if he needed me.

There was the shuffle of feet, the jingle of keys. We disregarded it, thinking it a taunting guard. But then there was the scrape of metal on metal, metal on concrete. A voice spoke. “Hurry up. Get to your feet.”

Kyle and I looked up to see the very officer who arrested us, Stan Marsh. Kyle shot to his feet, stumbling towards him. Stan opened his arms, letting Kyle fall into him. We had our own wing, so they openly embraced. “Fuck, dude! I was wondering when you’d come by!” Kyle exclaimed, gripping Marsh’s uniform.

Stan Marsh squeezed Kyle back, burying his face into his neck. “Sorry, dude. I tried to come as fast as I could,” he said.

Kyle pulled back and ran his fingers through Officer Stan Marsh’s stringy black hair that hung below his brow before grabbing his face and kissing him. Marsh reciprocated, and I was caught between the urge to roll my eyes or smile.

Their relationship was a strange one. An officer falls in love with a criminal, therefore doing anything their lover needs. Still, I was glad we were arrested by Kyle’s boyfriend rather than someone else. Stan Marsh was so corrupted by forbidden love that he would do anything to keep Kyle out of the cells. That’s why he let us out. Kyle and I stepped out of the cramped cell, but we weren’t quite free yet.

Marsh told Kyle, “You get one phone call. Make it a good one.” He winked at the redhead as he led us away from the cells.

Kyle held the phone to his ear, instructing the person on the other line where to pick us up. He spoke low but casually, like he was calling an Uber. In a way, he was. Marsh stood at his side, making it look like we were supervised.

After Kyle hung up, Marsh had us follow him to a back entrance to the prison, where there were no barbed walls to keep us in. Kyle and I stripped off our jumpsuits under the night sky, leaving on our white T-shirts and black shorts. Officer Marsh took our prison outfits from us, draping them across his arm. “Meet me at my house?” he asked, blue eyes on Kyle.

Kyle nodded. “Yeah, dude.” He kissed Marsh before turning to me. “We’ve got a car to catch,” he said.

I grinned maliciously. “What are we waiting for?”

Kyle and I took off, racing each other across the field of grass and onto the sidewalk. Our shoes slapped the pavement as we embraced the light air of freedom on our faces. On the corner of the street, hidden by a 7-11, sat a red 1967 Ford Mustang convertible.

We threw open the doors, me dropping into the passenger’s seat, Kyle in the back. I clicked on my seat belt, because even as a criminal, seat belts are always important. I snorted as the engine revved and we shot off onto the empty streets. “A bit cliche, isn’t it? To be driving a getaway car that looks like _this_?” I joked. I looked over at the driver, and it took everything in me to keep my jaw from dropping.

At the wheel, eyes fixed on the blurring road in front of us, cast in the green and red glow of the stoplights, sat probably the most handsome dude I’d ever seen. Kenny was handsome in a scruffy, rugged way, with his tousled honey-blonde hair, gap-toothed grin, pierced ears, and ripped jeans. But the guy next to me was downright _gorgeous._ He was handsome in that regal, chiseled-from-the-finest-stone kind of way. His jaw was sharp enough to cut through steel. His olive skin was smooth. His nose was straight, lips set in a neutral frown. His inky black hair was cut short, swept across his forehead elegantly. His eyes weren’t the emerald green like Kyle’s, but pale and gleaming, and just as stunning. Maybe more so.

I choked on the very oxygen I was breathing. Kyle, from the backseat, chuckled at my reaction. “Tweek, this is Craig Tucker. He’s a getaway driver, as you can see. Clyde recommended him. Says he’s the best in the business,” he introduced.

Craig grunted. “Yup. Leave it up to that piece of shit Donovan to blow my cover and give you my real name,” he grumbled.

“What? You afraid we’ll tell on you or some shit like that?” I said, trying to compose myself. I stared out the window as the colors melted into each other, the fuzziness of the street as we sped through it.

The driver shrugged. “Not necessarily. But you never know.” He glanced at me, and my stomach flipped. Heat crept up my neck, rolling out onto my cheeks. I was thankful it was dark. Somehow, I don’t know _how,_  I felt like I’d known him all my life, looking into those eyes.

From the back, Kyle stifled his laughter. “I guess I made a good choice choosing Craig to get us around, huh, Tweek?” he teased.

I ignored him.

The rest of the ride was in silence. We were all listening out for sirens, but so far, we hadn’t picked up any. I continued to watch the world outside the window. I let the fear that had been building up on my shoulders fall to rubble. I was so fucking scared that it was over when I was shoved into that jail cell. But we were freed of that. Our records would be cleared because Kyle had seduced a police officer, and fell in love with him while he did. It was both a good and bad thing. I knew from first hand experience what it was like to be a criminal and to be in love with a man of the law.

Minutes passed, but I didn’t know how many. To Craig, Kyle instructed, “Stop the car. I can walk from here.” The car slowed to a crawl. Kyle opened the door and got out.

“You sure? I can drive you closer,” Craig offered.

“And have me pay you extra? No thanks.” Kyle shut the door and walked into the darkness. The only thing indicating it was him was his red hair and muted footsteps.

I lurched in my seat, rolling down the window. “Wait!” I called into the crisp night. “You didn’t pay him!”

Kyle’s voice rang back down the street, bouncing off the buildings. “That’s your problem, dude! I got us out, and hailed the car! See you soon, Tweek! Good luck!”

“ _What?!_ Kyle, you asshole, stop!” It was useless. He was gone.

I swore under my breath. I was tempted to slam my head on the dashboard, but I didn’t want to look like a pouty bitch in front of Craig Tucker the getaway driver. From beside me, he snorted. “It’s fine. You don’t have to pay me back,” he said as he sped up.

My head snapped around to him. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. If a crook offered something for free, they wanted something _other_ than money in return. “Why not?”

The corner of his mouth turned up in what could be called a smirk. “You’re interesting. I’d like to get to know you better, if that fits in with your busy schedule,” he said.

Every inch of my being stilled, which wasn’t common with my shaky frame. I didn’t know whether to take being called interesting as a compliment or an insult. And what did he mean he wanted to get to know me better? So he could find my weaknesses and use them against me to kill me? No way, man.

When nothing came out of my mouth, Craig elaborated. “I mean I wanna take you out—” I started at that. “On a date,” he finished. He even cast me a look like he knew I would take it the wrong way.

I sunk back into the seat. The blush that had settled on my neck flushed up to my cheeks at full speed. “Oh.”

There was silence. It was forward, suspicious. We’d just met ten minutes ago. I was paranoid, but there was something about this man that I was compelled to. I wanted to know more. And maybe he wasn’t thinking when he said it. So I agreed. I glanced at the time on the radio. It was almost midnight.

“Can we go to Starbucks?” I asked. “It doesn’t close for another thirty minutes.”

Craig nodded. “Sure.”

We pulled into the drive-thru. At the window, Craig took our drinks from the woman. He handed my coffee to me, putting his own in the empty cup holder. He thanked her as she dropped his spare change into his palm. He rolled the window back up and parked into a vacant parking space.

“So,” he said, raising the cup to his lips. “How did you end up in that jail?”

I shrugged, swallowing my mouthful of scalding hot coffee without a flinch. “Kyle went back to collect the evidence he left by mistake, but he forgot that the cops were chasing us. They found us, arrested us, and threw us into the cells. Fortunately, Kyle’s boyfriend, Officer Stan Marsh, was the one who took us in, and he’s so corrupted that he let us go. All in the name of _love._ ” I spat the last word like it was the devil’s name.

“What? You don’t believe in love?” Craig asked. His tone was teasing.

I raised an eyebrow at him. It was a strange topic to cover between two strangers. “I didn’t take you for the kind of man to believe in that storybook crap. Especially one as dumb as true love,” I said. I lifted the cup to my lips and savored each sip. I hadn’t had coffee in two whole weeks. I’d kill to just have a day to myself, drinking as much coffee as I pleased. I was just drinking, and I loved it.

He chuckled, shaking his head. That marked the first time I’d ever seen him smile wide, and it was because of me. My chest swelled with pride.

“I didn’t say _true_ love, I said _love._ And yeah, even a man like me hopes for _love,_ ” he gagged.

I laughed, scrunching my nose up. “It’s the one thing us criminals can’t steal for our own, huh? Love.” I mulled the word over on my tongue. I knew what love felt like, strained and strengthened. But it only lasted for a moment. Long term love that ended in old age and dying together seemed unattainable to me.

I kept my cup to my mouth, soaking in the bitter warmth of the coffee. I felt Craig’s eyes on me. I turned to him, meeting those pale green eyes. His gaze on me was soft, thoughtful. As I drowned in the depths of those irises, I saw a potential future flash before my eyes. One I’d never imagined before. We could wreak havoc on the world together, giving the police splitting headaches. We could become filthy rich, rolling around in our illegal money, our only care for each other. We could die together, but we’d die happy. Me with this man I’d just met, but felt like I’d known forever; in past lives and other universes.

The scream of sirens woke me up from the sweet dream. My eyes flew away from his, to the side view mirrors, the color of red and blue lights reflecting onto my face. My breath stuck in my throat for a heartbeat before I screamed, “Go, go, go!”

The roar of the engine overpowered everything in me and Craig, shattering our moment. I was shoved into the back of my seat by sheer force. Coffee sloshed over my hands, onto my lap. Outside was torn into streaks. The speedometer was teetering over to max horsepower. Craig’s white knuckled hands on the wheel, my palpitating heartbeat against my rib cage. Craig’s straining neck, the sirens flooding my ears. Craig’s gritted teeth, my trembling hands.

I squeezed my eyes shut, like I could block out the madness. I knew who was in that cop car behind us. It was his mission, his life goal to see me behind bars. But he didn’t know the true face behind the sunset mask. I wondered what would happen if he did. Would he cry? Would he hate me? Or would he let me go and turn the other cheek, just as Stan did for Kyle? I almost laughed at the thought. My getaway, my great escape was turning into a circus with me and Craig Tucker, and Chief Officer Kenny McCormick manning the police car chasing after us.


	5. Chapter 5

**X marks the spot where we fell apart**  
**He poisoned the well, every man for himself**  
**I knew it from the first Old Fashioned we were cursed**  
**It hit you like a shotgun shot to the heart**

* * *

The cops were closing in on my parents, about to discover who they were, and where the fatal memory drugs were coming from. Memory drugs were created by my parents, my dad specifically. The pills looked like any other prescribed pill, but at the touch of liquid, the person who had the drug in their mouth fell unconscious for fifteen hours. When they woke up, a month’s worth of their memory was wiped. It’s a crucial item for criminals to have, and my parents make a shit ton of money selling it.

Police started finding the drugs in the victim’s system, and they realized it was coming from the same criminal. Or criminals, plural. They were so close to discovering the people behind the crimes that, like any good influence parents, they begged me to help them throw off the scent of the cops.

It didn’t help that Kenny was on the case to observe what his position as a cop would be like and how things worked in the field. My dad blamed me and my relationship with him on why his and Mom’s cover was about to be blown, so he forced me to help him before he did something to Kenny that I wouldn’t like. That’s exactly how he worded the threat. _“You’re going to help me derail those cops, Tweek, or I’m going to do something to that idiot boyfriend of yours that you won’t like.”_

Kenny was my everything, and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to him. I agreed. I had to put the memory drugs into random customers’ drinks at Starbucks, so it would look like the coffee place had something to do with the epidemic.

I remember my shaky hands hovering over the lip of the cup, the pill encased in my hand. My back was facing the other customers in the shop. I squeezed my eyes shut as I dropped the pill into the coffee. It sunk below the surface of the hot drink, no doubt dissolving already. I capped the cup and took a deep breath. I turned around, placing the cup on the counter. I called the person’s name. I couldn’t watch as they took their drink and returned to their table. Four minutes and thirty eight seconds passed. There was a thud. Then there was a shriek, an order for someone to call an ambulance. My body shook so badly, my eyes so wide, my face so pale, that no one suspected anything of me. The medics came and took the person away. They didn’t investigate further.

Day after day, random people, man or woman or whoever, would fall unconscious in my workplace because of me and my desperation to keep Kenny safe. One day, finally, the cops came in to investigate, and Kenny was with them.

He entered through the glass doors, following the team of officers who were showing him the ropes. Kenny looked around frantically. His eyes fell on me and he beelined to my side. The other officers cleared out the shop, gathering everyone outside for interrogation. Only I was left, shaking in my shoes. I was the only one working that day. They were going to bring me in—I knew it in my bones. My eyes spilled over with tears as I slid into Kenny’s familiar arms. “I don’t know what’s going on, Kenny,” I lied, burying my wet face in the crook of his neck. “People are just dropping u-unconscious, and it’s scaring m-me!”

I was scared of getting caught, getting my parents caught, Kenny finding out and hating me forever, only to be assassinated by a hitman my dad hired. I wasn’t as much scared of the poor people slumping over in their seats. I was a lair. And I hated how easily the lie came to me.

I sunk to the floor behind the counter, my knees weak, my face burning. Kenny held me to his chest as he kneeled beside me, wiping away my tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. He whispered in my ear, “It’s okay, coffee bean. It’s not your fault. Sshh.”

But it was my fault. He just didn’t know it. I stared at his freckled face. His eyebrows were creased together in worry. His thumb was holding my chin up so I could look at him. His violet eyes searched mine. A loud sob escaped my lips. Under his breath, he mumbled, “I swear to find whoever is doing this. I swear, Tweek. I swear.”

Little did he know, he already found the culprit. He was cradling him in his very arms.

A tall officer approached us, a frown on his face. He eyed me suspiciously. I twitched, and his eyes flicked over to Kenny. With a sigh, he ordered, “Bring him to the table, McCormick.”

Kenny rose to his feet, taking me up with him. He tucked me close to his side protectively. I sniffled, tears still rolling down my flushed cheeks pathetically. “Sir, please. This is my boyfriend. I know he wouldn’t do something like this,” he said, voice leveled.

The officer, chief officer I suspected, sniffed. He looked me over once more. “It’s only fair, McCormick. You know it. I can’t take favors,” he said.

Kenny stood his ground. His defense of me made my heart shrivel in my ribcage. “Sir, he doesn’t do well under pressure. You wouldn’t get anything out of him; he has severe anxiety. And I know him inside out. He wouldn’t do something like this.”

The chief officer grunted. “Fine. We’ll find more evidence first, but if nothing turns up, we’ll have to interrogate him. It’s protocol.” He walked away, towards the back room where the coffee machines were kept.

Kenny turned to me, brushing strands of blonde hair out of my face. His eyes were soft as he scanned my body for any injuries of some sort. He caressed my cheek, gaze finally landing on my face. “Sorry for this, coffee bean.” He sighed heavily, leaning his forehead against mine. “It’s part of the job.”

And I think that’s what broke my heart the most. He trusted me so much that he was positive that I wouldn’t do something as terrible as drugging innocent people. But I did. I betrayed the trust he put into me and he didn’t even know it. It was horrible. _I_ was horrible.

Months passed after that little incident. The cops found crushed pills in the unground coffee beans and had the Starbucks closed down. It made headlines everywhere, and the company lost some of its business. I had to leave the job too, not only for the paranoia of getting caught, but because Kenny feared for my safety, which made my stomach churn. The strange thing was that I didn’t put the pills in the beans. I didn’t even crush them up. I got lucky, I guess, but it made me wonder who really put those pills in there. The thought of me almost drinking the coffee and the pill laced in it freaked me out. I could’ve had my memory wiped because of a dirty job I was supposed to do and almost fucked up.

It had been two weeks since the memory drug case when Kenny was accepted as an official officer. I think they were desperate for new officers on the case, desperate for new minds. I knew from that day that our relationship would turn into every man for himself, even if Kenny didn’t know it. Even if he didn’t know that he poisoned the village well we were both drinking from. Right away, he was put on the investigation to find out where the memory drugs came from and who put them in the Starbucks. I was happy for him, and how he got the job he’d been working so hard for, but fear plagued me too. I was every bit a criminal and guilty as my parents were. It would be so easy for him to discover my family and me. Anxiety and paranoia ate at my insides. Insomnia came back to me, and I laid awake at night, staring at the wall, shadows tricking me into thinking they were demons awaiting my arrival to Hell. Kenny’s arm around my waist began to feel like bricks pushing the air out of my lungs. And when I did finally fall asleep on rare, overwhelming nights, nightmares flooded my brain, and I would wake up in a cold sweat, screaming and crying. Kenny was always there to comfort me, but I didn’t know whether to feel protected or afraid. I would eventually calm down, and Kenny would press kisses to my damp forehead, and I’d clutch his shirt or his shorts, sobbing into his shoulder. He always smelled like cigarette smoke and vanilla.

It was the last Thursday of March that following year. The time was two nineteen, bright red on the digital clock. The stars were glittering in the velvet black sky. I’d been tossing and turning, cold sweat clinging to the back of my neck. It dried when Kenny’s soft and even breathing clouded over my skin. My eyes were wide open, mind racing, hands fidgeting with the suffocating warmth of the blankets. I didn’t want to do it, and I’d worked up all my courage for this moment, but it drained out of me as soon as the moment came around. Tears stained my eyes, soaking through the pillow beneath my head. Violins pounded in my ears as I swallowed the breath that was stuck in my throat, and slipped out from under Kenny’s safe, comfortable arms. His warmth fell off me, and I was left shivering. He stirred but didn’t wake. I sat on the floor, back pressed to the edge of the bed. I dropped my head to my sweaty palms, fingers twisting in my damp blonde locks. Tears didn’t fall, and I wished they did. I wished Kenny would wake to the sound of my sobs and scoop me up in his arms. Bring me back to the bed, push me to his chest, run his hands through my hair. Help me fall asleep to his breath on my cheeks, and make me forget about the stupid decision I was about to make and regret. But he didn’t.

I spent half an hour thinking through what I was about to do, how it would turn out, how it would make me feel later. I sorted out the pros and cons, spiraling into how much _I’ll regret this._  My fingers dug into my palms, or tugged at my hair, or fiddled with my white T-shirt, never satisfied with just staying still in my lap. But finally, I staggered to my feet. I opened the drawer in Kenny’s desk, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen, and a piece of tape. I walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I sat on the closed toilet, balancing the pad on my knee. In the moonlight filtering in through the small window above the shower, I scrawled out a message he wouldn’t see until morning:

 

_Dear Kenny, expert in making me feel like I matter,_

_It kills me to write this note because of how much I love you._ _So much so that I can’t even do this in person or when you’re awake. I’m a pussy, and I’ve always been. Not even someone as spectacular as you can change that. I’m sorry I have to do this, but the pressure of your job is too much for me to handle. I’m scared for you, for what will happen to you with all these new tasks given to you. I’ve stayed up at night for the past four months, thoughts overwhelming my mind of what could happen to you. I know it would be rare for something particularly bad to happen to you, but you know how I am. I run as soon as I stumble across something that unsettles me. Even still, I’ll love you, forever and always. I wish you success and happiness in life and someone else who’s braver than me, who supports your choice in your future. Because it’s for you to decide and pursue. I don’t want to hold you back, because I know you, Kenny. It’s always been my best interests first, yours second. I don’t want that for you. I’ve never liked how you’ve done that, but I didn’t know how to tell you to stop without sounding rude and ungrateful, because I am grateful for how you always think of me, but it’s your life, and your choices should always be your top priority. Not me. I’m sorry that I can’t handle the pressure. I’m sorry I can’t stay, but it’s best we both move on. I have to leave for the sake of you and me._

_With love and regret, Tweek_

 

I taped it onto the mirror, above the sink where he was sure to see it later. I opened the bathroom door. The clock read four in the morning. It took me two hours to pour out my heart and soul into a single piece of paper in the dark, and after two tries, I’d perfected the letter to my satisfaction. Kenny was asleep on the bed, back turned away from the spot I usually slept in. He looked so peaceful, blissful, oblivious. His honey-blonde hair was sprawled on the pillow, his arms tucked close to his head. The blankets were twisted between his legs. We both moved around in our sleep, and usually when we woke up, the blankets would be on the floor. We’d wrap each other up in our limbs for warmth until we were awake enough to haul the blankets back up onto the bed. Then we’d cocoon ourselves away from the world. I smiled at the memory, but it wavered as I thought about how I wouldn’t be able to make any more memories like that. With him anyway. I bit down on my lip to hold back a cry.

I padded to the dresser we shared. I slowly pulled out a pair of jeans that I put on. I found my mostly empty backpack and mindlessly shoved random articles of clothing into it. My limbs felt like lead as I slipped it over my shoulders. My hand was centimeters away from the doorknob when I froze. My shaking fingers curled into a fist. I spun back around, speed walking silently back to the bed. I rounded it until I was standing over Kenny and his relaxed features. My lips tugged into a frown as my eyes welled. I leaned over, touching my lips to his temple. A tear fell from my eye and onto his skin as I pulled away. It rolled down his cheek, leaving a wet path in its wake. I bit down hard on my hand to stifle a heart-torn scream of agony. My heart was literally shattering into a million fragments in my chest. A thousands knives were shoved into my gut, twisting around. My legs wobbled as I hurried out of the room. The rest happened in flashes and blurs of light.

At one point I was throwing open the front door to the apartment. I closed it with a click when I left the home I’d lived in ecstacy for three years. The apartment and Kenny were my home, where my heart belonged, and I was leaving all I knew behind. I pressed my back against the door, sobbing as quietly as I could. My watery hiccups echoed down the empty hallway exposed in the night air. I held my blood-shotted, waterfall of eyes, and soaked up the chilling breeze blowing through my thin clothes.

Another piece of memory was me racing down the concrete stairs, feet pounding underneath me. My breathing was uneven and fractured. Something kept thudding against my chest. Still running, I stuck my hand down my shirt and pulled out the brass key to Kenny’s apartment. He gave it to me long before I first moved in with him, when he was only my support beam holding me up from my issues, before we became a couple. I always wore it around my neck, not trusting myself to keep it anywhere else because I knew my klutz of a self would lose it if it wasn’t attached to me. But in the heat of the moment of bolting like a coward, I forgot to drop it off on the hook of keys Kenny kept by the front door. I shook my head, letting it fall back to my chest as I kept going.

The rest wasn’t as vivid, and the others weren’t even that clear. I ended up in the back of a taxi, crying to myself. I watched the colors blur past me as I stared out the window. Then I was at the front step of my parents’ house, thumping a shaking fist on the door, whimpering for them let me in. I had the key somewhere in my backpack, but I didn’t want to look for it. Then I was being cradled in my mom’s arms on her bed. I cried into her shoulder as she smoothed my hair, murmuring everything was all right. I clutched Kenny’s key in my hand, the jagged edges biting into my skin. Eventually, I fell asleep, dimly aware of my mom tucking me in beside her.

 

The cops on Kenny’s team never found out who had been drugging people’s Starbucks drinks, and they were thrown off their trails on who was _creating_ the drugs. The case was dismissed. Kenny moved on from me after a year of being without me. He’d called and texted and did everything to contact me the next morning, but I didn’t answer. It must’ve felt like a bullet to the heart with me gone on sudden notice like that. I hurt every bit as much as I thought him to be. I ended up changing my phone number to better forget about him, and him about me. And X marked the spot where the love story of Kenny and Tweek fell apart. I disappeared from his life, and he never saw me again.

At least, he never saw his beloved coffee bean again.


	6. Chapter 6

 

**You were driving the getaway car**  
**We were flying, but we'd never get far**  
**Don't pretend it's such a mystery**  
**Think about the place where you first met me**  
**Riding in a getaway car**  
**There were sirens in the beat of your heart**  
**Should've known I'd be the first to leave**  
**Think about the place where you first met me**

**In a getaway car**  
**No, they never get far**  
****No, nothing good starts in a getaway car** **

* * *

I stand on the white leather seats of the car, leaning on the windshield. Mask still on, and I hold it to my face as I let the furious wind toy with my hair. We drive away from the sunset. Sunbeams bounce off the red hood of the car, my skin soaking up the warmth. White stripes on the road wink past us as we speed down the empty freeway. Background noise consists of the radio blasting overplayed pop songs and the faint wail of sirens. With the mall and short stop we made to rob the rich people’s bank, we’re driving back into town to shake off the cops with all the twists and turns and traffic. There will be more crawling about, sure, but this isn’t my first rodeo.

The first office building comes into sight over the rolling hills, shafts of sunlight captured in the glass. The city of gold sprouts up from the ground. I run my tongue over my bottom lip. I drop back into my seat, sprawling myself over Craig. “We’re almost there!” I sing-song. “Ready to taunt some coppers?”

Craig snorts. His eyes flick across my face. I can feel his smile through his mask. “I guess. Get off me, honey, before we get into a car crash. It’d be _your_ fault for a pathetic way to get thrown in jail,” he says.

I grin widely. “You know me. I wanna go out with a bang.” I lift myself from him and watch the side view mirrors. The cop cars are little glowing dots down the road behind us. I smirk. Why haven’t they called for backup yet? Or maybe they did, and they’re waiting in the town.

Cars skid out of the way as we speed down the road. Into the city we go. Buildings zoom past, cars screech, pedestrians scream. I’m tempted to lean back in my seat and relax, but Craig swears.

“Fuck,” he curses.

I sit up, peering out the windshield. Like I suspected, police cars up ahead split the ocean of cars, drawing closer to us. I unbuckle mine and Craig’s seat belt, and hoist my backpack from my feet to around my shoulders. I twist to the backseat and stretch my fingers for our guns on the floor hidden under the seats. I sling my shotgun around my shoulders and toss Craig his hand gun.

I glance at him. He glances at me. There are sirens pulsing with my heartbeats. From the look Craig gives me, I can tell it’s the same for him. There are sirens in the beat of his heart too. “Hit and run?” I suggest breathlessly.

He smirks and nods. We get closer to the cop cars that are slowing down and parking across the middle of the road. Only six yards from the wall with Craig’s foot still on the pedal, we throw open the doors and duck and roll onto the street at the same time. In the fraction of a second I have to think, I wonder how badass it must seem to the onlookers to see two criminals roll onto the street in perfect sync. Having hit and run various times before, I spring to my feet with ease and sprint like lightning around the driverless, veering red 1967 Ford Mustang convertible. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Craig make a sharp turn to the left, away to hotwire another car. To my right, there are screams, then a deafening crunch and crash of the convertible colliding into the barricade of cop cars. Cars burst into flames. Some parts even fly off. I smile as I push people out of my way. I love explosions.

Over the years, I’ve worked up my stamina so that I can sprint for three miles without slowing down. Running from the law will do that to you. My feet consciously take me to our set rendezvous point—an abandoned office building in the abandoned part of town where our friend and notorious serial killer, Eric Cartman, goes to hide the bodies of his victims. Okay, maybe he’s not a friend. He’s an asshole, but I wouldn’t say that to his face since I don’t want to be chopped up into little pieces and fed to my parents as chili. Kyle and Craig have enough bravery and stupidity to insult him to his face though.

I dig through my backpack for my identification card so I can get into the building. When I have it in my hands, I hold it up to the scanner beside the door. The little bulb on the side switches from red to green. I push open the front doors, trying to look as casual as I’m capable. It’s not easy with panting breath and a wild look in my eyes. Inside, I slump into one of the waiting couches near the reception desk, panting. I wipe the sweat off my forehead. The interior of the office building isn’t as empty as it looks on the outside. The lights are on, and there are stolen paintings on the wall. A patterned rug lies beneath my feet. To my right is the elevator, to the left are bathrooms, but the upper floors are where all the magic really happens. I don’t go up, since I’m waiting for Craig to pick me up. I hope he doesn’t get himself caught. He’s never gotten caught before, but I have the right to worry.

The elevator dings, and I almost break my neck whipping my head around so fast. The doors slide open and out steps Eric Cartman himself, a gun in hand, just is case. With his large size and his permanent scowl and his one brown eye, the other violet, he looks frightening. Yet I let out a sigh of relief, thankful it’s just him and not the cops like I feared for a moment. Those mismatched eyes land on me. The gun disappears into its holster at his waist. “Tweek. Haven’t seen you in a while. Hiding out?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

I nod. “Yeah. I had to drop by while Craig gets the car,” I explain.

Cartman replies, “Another close encounter with the cops again? I can hear the sirens from here.”

“Yep.”

“As long as you don’t bring them here, be my guest,” he grumbles. “I’ll be upstairs.” And with that, he disappears back up to the top floors. Presumably the fourth. In this building, the fourth floor is off limits, but the rest are open to anyone who has an identification card. I don’t know what he does on that floor, but I have a few ideas. Some say it’s where he plots his murders. Others say it’s where he hides the bodies while he defiles them and cuts off their limbs. Kyle says it’s where he keeps a wall of pictures and information of some police officer he’s obsessed with. I don’t know who, or if it’s true, but us criminals have too many inappropriate relations with cops.

I stare out the windows, searching for any sign of Craig. The buildings across the way are peeling with paint. Graffiti tags are the freshest coats of paint the buildings have seen in years. The glass windows are smashed and dirtied. The street is empty and filled with garbage. Eric Cartman tries to keep his building as ratty as the others as to not cause suspicion. He does a good job at it, since all he has to do is never clean anything. So far, there’s no hint of Craig. I run my fingers through my hair, urging my racing heart to calm. I close my eyes. Nobody except certain criminals know that this building is occupied, so it’s fine. Craig and I split up and the cops aren’t quick enough to catch us. We’ve done this before. We’re fine. But I don’t know for how long this will be true. There’s a twist in my gut that tells me something bad is gonna happen.

There’s a single honk beyond the glass. I jump in my seat, eyes snapping open. I trip over my feet, stumbling a bit as I shove open the doors. Out parked on the street is a white Tesla that looks oddly familiar. The windows are heavily tinted. The tires are covered in a light layer of dust, but the paint job sparkles in the last rays of sunlight. It’ll be dark in five minutes. I whistle lowly. The passenger window rolls down, revealing a smirking Craig.

“Get in, babe. We’ve got cops on our heels,” he says.

I throw open the door and sink into the black seat. Craig speeds off, and I look at him with wide eyes. “How did you get this?” I ask, astonished. “And why do I feel like I’ve seen this car before?”

Craig shrugs, still smirking. “We have half the city in the palm of our hands. It wasn’t that difficult. And I’m the best in the business at hotwiring and stealing cars, remember? As for seeing it before, remember that Tesla we parked next to earlier? This is it. I saw it parked in front of the Walmart, of all places.”

“Impressive. And convenient.” I wrap my arms around him. We sit in quiet for a minute before I warily ask, “You didn’t have to, you know, _kill_ anyone to get this, right?” The thought alone makes me queasy. Killing is Cartman’s specialty.

“Fuck no. Do you not trust that my skills alone can get us a car this nice?” he jokes.

I giggle. “No.”

“Then you’re a dick.”

We both burst out laughing. I cover my mouth to keep drool from seeping past my lips. Tears fleck my eyes. Craig’s dorky laugh fills my ears. With my laugh coming to an uncontrollable giggle, I lift Craig’s mask just enough to see the bottom half of his face. I lean over until I’m almost in his lap, sitting on the center console. I stroke a piece of his black hair away from his forehead.

“I love you,” I murmur. I pitch forward and push my lips to his. Dangerous, to be kissing someone who’s driving, but who says we haven’t practiced? He keeps a hand on the wheel, the other on my back as his lips move with mine. The world seems to slow, and our troubles melt away with it. The only time I feel pure bliss instead of pain and guilt is when I’m with him.

Hesitantly, I break the kiss, hovering inches in front of him. He meets my eyes with those beautiful pale green irises. Green’s always been my favorite color. He smiles that smile just for me to see. “Love you too,” he says. Smiling for the simple fact that he smiled at me, I lower back to my seat, staring out the windshield. We’re heading deeper into the city. Fingers lace through my own. I glance up at Craig, then our intertwined hands. And my heart aches. I don’t know why. There’s something in the air that unsettles me, and the twisting in my gut gets worse. That’s all it takes for me to hold onto his hand like a lifeline.

 

Through the city, into the night, wind caressing my skin. I watch the roads on the sides of us. My arm rests on the side of the car. My hand curves and droops, riding a wave of rushing air. I sing along to the song on the radio absentmindedly. For the hour we’d been driving, no cops found us. My heart had long stopped racing from the lack of excitement, but the heavy air still lingers. I wonder if Craig notices.

Out of nowhere, sirens begin to blare, flowing into the open windows. In the rear view mirror, a cop car speeds up from behind us. For a microsecond, the world freezes. In the driver’s seat of that cop car sits a honey-blonde policeman with a gap in his teeth, and seven piercings in his left ear. My breath leaves me in a woosh, due to shock and the way Craig floors it. We lurch into our seats with an invisible hand, my seat belt digging into my throat. I sit back, breath ragged. The world rushes back to me as fast as we’re zooming away from the car behind us. Lights pass by in streaks, and it’s difficult to breathe.

Craig swears loudly. His eyes are wild, frantically searching while I’m having a silent panic attack. I don’t know what he’s looking for, and I can’t ask because my words are lodged in my windpipe. My fingers dig into the seat of the car, tearing through the leather. My eyes are stuck on the rear view mirror, on the policeman scowling at the back of our car. I’ve never seen Kenny look so furious, and especially not at me, but he doesn’t know it’s me, his coffee bean. He’s chasing after the Dying Sunlight. There’s movement from the passenger side. My eyes flick over. I stare at the bleach-blonde young man about my age speaking into the radio. Even from the distance they’re closing between us, I can see his pale blue eyes, one vibrant, the other milky—blind. There’s a scar over that eye, making him look vicious, but his face is so innocent looking. I know him right away.

I hate to admit that I used to keep tabs on Officer Kenny McCormick. Kyle thought it was strange when I asked him to ask Stan to feed me information about him. Kyle still did it either way without question. I think he understood my situation, even though I’d never mentioned Kenny to anybody. When Kyle handed me a month’s worth of updates on Kenny’s life Stan had compiled, I was a mix of emotions of shock, disappointment, and a small but bright flame of happiness to read that a month prior, Kenny had started dating another officer—Leopold Stotch. There was a picture paperclipped to the folder of a kind, smiling face with a scarred blind eye. Kenny had gotten over me faster than I’d anticipated, considering those three inseparable years together. At the time, we’d been apart for only a year, before Kyle and I got thrown into jail, before I met Craig.

The car turns sharply, the tires squealing against the asphalt. The force throws me to the window. My head hits the glass. I wince, jarred out of my thoughts that were spiraling too far. I prop myself back up, rubbing my head.

“Sorry,” Craig mutters, still focused on the twisting streets ahead.

“It’s okay,” I say. My voice is raspy. “Just throw them off.”

Craig nods, and the chase continues. The key looped around my neck burns into my chest, branding my skin. After all these years, I can’t get rid of it. It’s a part of me. Craig asked me about it once. I said it was just an accessory. But it means so much more.


	7. Chapter 7

 

**We were jet set, Bonnie and Clyde**  
**Until I switched to the other side**  
**To the other side**  
**It's no surprise I turned you in**  
**'Cause us traitors never win**

**I'm in a getaway car**  
**I left you in a motel bar**  
**Put the money in a bag and I stole the keys**  
****That was the last time you ever saw me** **

* * *

Craig pulls up into the empty parking lot of a small motel. We’d lost Kenny and Leopold long ago. It’s 2 a.m. now. They’d been searching blindly for four hours. Kenny’s never been good at tracking down criminals making their escape in cars. He easily gets distracted by all the traffic and other cars and forgets which direction the car went. I don’t know about Leopold, but apparently he was no help either. Better for us. We got to the other side of the city in that time.

As soon as we’d lost them, the fist around my heart loosened and the pressure in my head subsided. I stuff our guns into my backpack, along with the memory drugs and my mask. Craig has his own backpack around his shoulders. Within his sits seventy thousand dollars of someone’s hard earned money, the diamonds from the mall, and his Inca-inspired mask. The lights from the sign above us casts a neon pink and blue glow over us. I take Craig’s hand. We walk into the motel.

Inside smells of lemon and the sound of country music waft in from the motel bar. The place is actually kind of nice, with the polished wooden floors and shiny furniture. Considering we’re closer to the hillbilly redneck part of the city, I was expecting torn up couches and the smell of trash, but it’s a decent place. We’re only here to lay low from the cops for a while, so it wouldn’t matter anyway. We approach the reception desk. The man behind it looks up at us. “Hello, gentleman. Do you have reservation?” he asks, his tone forced with joyfulness. I wouldn’t want to work in a motel on the edge of town, no matter how nice it looks. It sounds boring.

“Uh, no. But we need a room for two. Tonight only,” Craig says.

The man turns to the computer beside him. He types into the keyboard. “I can get you Room 212 on the second floor. It’ll cost you a hundred for one night.” Craig pulls out his credit card from his backpack and hands it to the man. It’s not really Craig’s card, but one we traded in with Bebe for a diamond choker. Bebe is a fellow crook, one who specializes in selling off jewels and paintings on the black market. Craig and I sell our stolen jewelry to her and her husband, Clyde Donovan, so they can sell the accessories on the black market. Often, their names are mushed together: Bebe and Clyde, a parody of Bonnie and Clyde, even though they stay locked up in their penthouse most of the time. They’ll come on expeditions if something really good comes out of it—something that’ll sell for thousands.

The man goes through the motions so we can get our room. Then he opens a drawer and hands Craig a key with a paper tag attached to it. “Room number 212, on the second floor to your right. Have a good night, boys,” he says.

Craig thanks him. Instead of going straight up to the room to catch up on sleep, he pockets the key and smirks at me. “Wanna get some drinks? I think we deserve it after our eventful day today,” he offers. He even winks, which is something Craig Tucker does _not_ do.

A grin makes its way onto my mouth. “Sounds good to me.”

We follow the music and dim talking into the motel bar to the right of the reception desk. It’s mostly empty. Three men sit at the bar, all in their late thirties. The bartender chats with them like they’re old friends. Maybe they are. I wonder how many people are actually staying the night here. Not a lot, most likely, considering it’s a Wednesday.

Craig stands over the pool table, two billiards in hand. On the table is a triangle of the numbered balls. He must’ve set up while I was surveying the room. I set down our backpacks on the floor at my feet. I raise an eyebrow, taking a billiard from him. “Pool, huh? You know I’m better than you at this, right?” I ask tauntingly.

He leans on his billiard, bringing his face close to mine. “Oh, babe. Did you forget that _I’m_ the one who’s good at this game?” He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “That’s a shame. We should really get that memory of yours checked out sometime.”

Face reddening from his closeness and silly teasing, I lock my eyes on his. I smile, batting my eyelashes. Craig chuckles, swooping in closer for a kiss. Instead, I kick the billiard from under him and step to the side. He goes down like a falling tree, face planting like a pro. I hold my middle, howling with laughter. He grumbles as he gets to his feet. He’s blushing now too. He flips me off—which makes me laugh even harder—before enveloping me in his arms. He peppers my face in kisses, hissing how much he hates me through that stupid grin on his mouth. I twist around, draping my arms over his shoulders. He stares down at me with glittering eyes. I reach up on my tiptoes to put my lips against his. He sinks into my embrace, deepening the kiss with a tilt of his head. He tastes like mint toothpaste.

Eventually, I have to reluctantly pull away to breathe. “Let’s get back to pool so I can kick your ass, okay?” I say, patting his chest. He rolls his eyes, half-smiling. I step up to the pool table and aim my billiard. For good measure, I shake my ass for the sole purpose of embarrassing Craig, sticking my tongue out in concentration. From behind me, I hear him let out a hybrid of a groan and chuckle.

“You’re such a bitch, Tweek,” he says.

“Maybe. But you’re my bitch, bitch,” I retort. I tap the billiard against the white ball in front of it. It breaks into the triangle of the colorful balls, all of them rolling in different directions. A solid red three rolls into the pocket to the right.

Craig scoffs, rounding the table to the left side. He leans over, positioning his billiard in front of the cue ball. “I’m no one’s bitch.” The cue ball collides with a blue striped ten. It falls into the middle pocket across from him. “I’m my own man.”

“I disagree, rainbow boy,” I say. I move around the table, taking my turn. “If I win, you have to do whatever I want for a whole week.”

“What makes you think you’ll win?” Craig moves to the bottom right corner, lining up his shot. “If you lose, though, you do whatever _I_ want for a week. How does that sound, babe?”

My turn. I lean over the front of the table. I hum, flexing my arm. “It’s a deal. But I’m gonna win. I always do.” Two balls make it into the bottom left pocket. I straighten, raising an eyebrow at him. “See?”

He shakes his head, grinning. “And how do you know that, Mister High and Mighty?” A striped nine teeters into a pocket.

“I just fucking know.”

An hour later, I ended up winning. I dance around the table, rubbing _“I told you so!”_ in Craig’s face. He just rolls his eyes and flips me off. “Now you have to do whatever I please. Pick up our bags and buy me a drink, slave,” I drawl.

Craig snorts, eyes falling on me. He tilts my head up to him, pecking my lips. “As you wish, Your Highness.” He stoops and scoops up our backpacks. We walk over to the bar, taking three stools. One for me, one for Craig, the other for our stuff. The bartender finally stops conversing and smiles at us. “What can I get you boys today?” he asks.

Craig jabs a thumb at me. “He’ll have an Old Fashioned, and I’ll take, uhh… vodka Red Bull,” he requests.

The bartender nods, turning to the shelves of drinks behind him.

I bump my shoulder against Craig’s. “You have a _serious_ Red Bull addiction. You could die. And then I’d be really sad,” I say, pouting.

Craig leans in close, nuzzling his nose into my hair as he ruffles my feathery locks. His fingers linger, twisting my blonde hair at the nape of my neck. “And you have a serious coffee addiction that could kill _you._  Then _I’d_ be really sad,” he mocks.

“I hate you,” I bite.

“I love you.” His kisses me, and I blush beneath his lips. I can’t help myself. I cradle his head, falling deeper into the kiss, falling deeper into love, falling deeper into doom. His skin is a familiar warm. His breath fans out over my cheeks as he pulls back. I massage my fingers through his hair absentmindedly. Craig Tucker is probably the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.

_Don’t take it for granted,_ my mind whispers.

Our drinks are set down in front of us. Craig thanks the bartender, who nods his head before picking up his conversation with the other men at the bar. I sip from the glass, the whiskey burning the back of my throat. I’ve never understood the hype of drinking alcohol. It sucks. The shit doesn’t even taste good. But I guess it’s like drugs, where the intake is horrible, but the aftermath is the endgame.

Craig’s arm finds my waist. He leans his head on my shoulder, drinking his beverage. When he opens his mouth, he starts singing. “ _I have died everyday waiting for you… Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years…_ ”

Confused as to why he started quietly singing “A Thousand Years,” I strain my ears to catch a hold of the music drifting through the speakers of the bar. I finally recognize the soft sound of the song. Listening further, I flashback to a time when Kenny and I danced around the living room to the song. The sun was sinking into the horizon as we sleepily waltzed around the carpet. I shake my head to try to get the image out of my mind, but it burns behind my eyes like when you accidentally look at the sun.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

Craig’s voice startles me as my senses return. I jump in my seat, my Old Fashioned sloshing over the lip of the glass. “N—nothing. Just thinking.” I shakily take a gulp of the drink to distract myself from the memory. I tune out the song playing in the background, focusing my attention on Craig. He stares at me, concern on his features.

“What about?” he questions.

I whisper back, “The abrupt stop of the chase.” I down the last of my Old Fashioned to cover up the lie falling past my lips.

Craig nods, dark eyebrows furrowing. “Yeah. It was definitely quick.” He smiles subtly as his eyes lock on mine. “But we lost them. That’s all that matters, right, honey?” He throws back the rest of his drink with as little as a flinch. He sets down his empty glass to cup my cheeks. His thumbs run over my jaw. His smile continues to ghost his face. Eyes half lidded, he gazes at me with what I can only describe as love. My heart melts. I used to think my capability of feeling love died along with my relationship with Kenny. But I was wrong. And I’m glad I was. I press my lips to his smile, tasting the lingering vodka and Red Bull.

His hands slip down to my hips, fingers hooking around the front pockets of my blue jeans. My head tilts as I pull him closer by the collar of his sweatshirt. My mouth parts, and Craig’s tongue peeks past my teeth. I giggle at the ticklish feeling of his tongue brushing mine. I don’t even care if the other people at the bar are watching. He chuckles too. I crack open my eyes, still sucking on his bottom lip. Suddenly, green meets blue and the rest of the world ceases to exist. I don’t want to close my eyes, even if staring at someone while you’re kissing them is awkward. It’s not awkward when it’s us. It’s not awkward when it’s Tweek and Craig, the inseparable pair of day and night. Where one goes, the other follows.

Craig’s hands are back on my cheeks, flitting over every inch of my face and neck. I hum at the sparks that course through my veins when his fingertips land on my skin. Craig and I are a lightning storm, sparks flying everywhere, and everyone within a three mile radius gets shocked from the passion flying off of us.

The kiss breaks for the lack of oxygen we need in our aching lungs. We grin at each other, hearts racing. “Let’s go upstairs,” I whisper.

Craig follows my orders. We take our backpacks and run up the the room. Our giggles fill the air. Room 212 stands before us. Craig fumbles with the key before getting the door open. We step inside, dropping our shit to the floor. Craig locks the door behind us. I push him to the bed. It squeaks under our heated bodies. Climbing on top of him, I run my hands over Craig’s chest, mashing my lips to his. He squeezes my thighs, sloppily kissing me back. I can’t hold back a moan when his tongue caresses mine. He rolls us over, pinning me between him and the mattress. His teeth nip my ear, my jaw, my neck. We let sounds of pleasure waft into the buzzing air as he kisses me down. His hands travel up my shirt. I shift underneath him to feel him better. I moan louder, face reddening.

Then my ears twitch, picking up the shriek of sirens before my groggy brain can register the sounds. Everything freezes. Craig lifts his head from my neck. We look at each other. Our blushing faces soon drain of all color. I feel Craig’s racing heart against me. Sirens? Coming closer? Cold sweat breaks out all over my body. “I’ll go out to see if I can get a better look,” I suggest.

“Yeah. Good idea,” he croaks. He clambers off me and springs to his feet. “Take the backpacks with you. In case you have to take off running. Knock on the door twice if the cops get too close for comfort. Meet me at Cartman’s if they do. Leave my gun and mask. Also in case,” he says. I do as he tells me, setting the things he asked for in his hands.

I scoop up the backpacks and tug them onto either of my shoulders. I have a bad feeling about this. Feeling the need to say something, to ignore my pounding heart, I blurt, “I love you so much.” I plunge towards him, pressing a kiss to his mouth. He flawlessly reciprocates.

Craig smiles at me when I step back. He takes my quivering hand in his. He kisses my knuckles like he always does. “Don’t worry, honey. This won’t be the last time we see each other. But I love you too. There’s nothing in the world—or any other world in any other universe, for that matter—that could make me stop loving you, remember, babe?”

Babe.

The pet name rings around in my ears as I disappear through the doorway of our room. I hear the click of the door close behind me, but the sound of sirens are amplified. I can’t see them, but I can feel them getting closer. The summer air is warm. It doesn’t fit with the unsettling cold in my gut. The backpacks get heavier on my shoulders, almost pulsing with a mind of their own. My nails dig holes through the fabric of the straps from the intensity in which I’m twisting them in my anxious grip. A thought occurs to me. Kenny could be in one of those cop cars heading towards our direction. He could burst into the motel at any moment. His eyes could fall on me, and crash with shock and disappointment at the true identity of the Dying Sunlight. He could throw me behind bars with as much hate as his body could contain, scowling at me like I was the muck of the Earth. Like the disappointment I truly was.

Fear takes me by the neck, it’s grip cutting off my air supply. My fingers move without my brain’s permission. I feel nothing but the haziness in my head. The sharpest thought is the fact that I’m acknowledging I’m switching to the other side. It’s no surprise—what I’m doing. I drop to a knee, sliding the backpacks off my shoulders. My fingers unzip the biggest pocket of Craig’s backpack. I stare at the money and jewels glittering at the bottom. They taunt me. With trembling fingers, I stuff the them into my backpack. My breath comes in short, desperate gasps. Opening the smallest pocket of his backpack, I steal the keys to the getaway car.

The keys weigh a thousand pounds in my palm. My eyes won’t lift from them. My heartbeat throbs as the sound of sirens closer approaches. They’ll be here soon. I turn. Craig’s silhouette stands in the curtained windows. I can see the shape of his gun in his hand. I picture the mask on his face, rigid as he waits for my signal. My signal that he’ll never get.

I leave his backpack abandoned in front of the door as I jog down the stairwell. My own backpack, filled with money and jewels, bounces against my back. It digs into my spine as my heart digs into my chest. I’m sure I’m having a heart attack. Or maybe my heart is literally smashing into miniscule flecks of dust in my rib cage. I thought I’d felt heartbreak before, but this feeling is so much worse. It feels like I’m dying. No, drowning. With my head shoved under treacherously warm waves as my lungs burn with the need for air. If I breathe, though, I’ll only make my death quicker. The whole situation gives me déjà vu. I’ve made this cowardly move before.

_Every man for himself._ I would’ve never thought I’d apply that to my life. Not when I was with Kenny, and especially not with Craig.

I’m a traitor. I’ve always been a traitor.

In the parking lot, the wind whips at me angrily, like it wants me to stay. Like it wants to drag me by my feet back up the concrete stairs and into Craig’s arms before I make the same mistake twice and end up with double the amount of regret. The scenery around me is gray and black. The only color is from the streetlights, always changing from green to yellow to red.

I unlock the white Tesla, jumping into the driver’s seat. I’m never in the driver’s seat. I’m never in a getaway car alone. The situation is foreign. Just sitting in the seat feels all sorts of wrong. I stick the keys in the engine. The car revs to life. I back out of the parking spot and onto the road. The reality of the situations finally catches up to me: I’m leaving Craig alone in the motel for the cops to snatch him up, disappearing without a single trace, taking the getaway car—his only chance of escape, only so he can take my place in a cell I don’t want to be in. This is betrayal. Ripping out his heart with a dull knife would be less painful. Tears prick my eyes. To think, not even ten minutes ago, we were making out on a motel bed, where nothing in the world mattered. Only we mattered.

A single thought occurs to me. _That’s the last time Craig will ever see me. That’s how he’ll remember me. Kissing his lips in a motel at three in the morning, only to be abandoned like his backpack at the door in a time of need._

And all ‘cause us traitors never win.


	8. Chapter 8

 

**Driving the getaway car**  
**We were flying, but we'd never get far**  
**Don't pretend it's such a mystery**  
**Think about the place where you first met me**  
**Riding in a getaway car**  
**There were sirens in the beat of your heart**  
**Should've known I'd be the first to leave**  
**Think about the place where you first met me**

**In a getaway car**  
**No, they never get far**  
**No, nothing good starts in a getaway car**

**I was riding in a getaway car**  
**I was crying in a getaway car**  
**I was dying in a getaway car**  
**Said goodbye in a getaway car**  
**Riding in a getaway car**  
**I was crying in a getaway car**  
**I was dying in a getaway car**  
****Said goodbye in a getaway car** **

* * *

I’m driving the getaway car. Sitting at the wheel doesn’t feel the same as standing on the passenger seat with the top down, arms spread out like you’re flying. I’ll never be able to fly again. Not without someone to take the wheel. The daydream of Craig and me as birds of prey comes back to me, flashing pictures in my face. We were flying, wind gushing past our faces, ruffling our feathers. We’d soar through the clear skies, free of our hunters. But then it’d stop. We’d never land. We’d never get far.

Maybe in an alternate universe, Craig is the first to leave. And maybe he’d come back to me when he would realize he couldn’t live without me. But that’s not this universe. I won’t be able to revel in the luxury of short-term heartbreak.

I stop at a stoplight, only a building away from the motel. I figure if I drive as casually as I can, the cops rolling into the motel parking lot won’t give me a second glance. The cop cars stop, doors opening and spilling out with officers. Kenny is the first one I see. His honey-blonde hair twirls in the wind. He stares hard at the motel in front of him. On the other side of the car, another officer steps out. Leopold Stotch. He twists his black baton in his hands. I watch the scene unfold in the rearview mirror. The stoplight changes. Slowly, I begin driving again.

I rip my eyes away from the madness behind me. I focus on the road, white-knuckling the steering wheel. I swipe my pathetic tears that had been leaking from my eyes without my consent from my cheek. I scowl at the road ahead of me. What has my life become?

I can’t help myself. I look back to the mirror. The officers congregate in a circle, forming a plan. Officer Kenny McCormick directs them, pointing in various directions, instructing a place for them to search. The circle breaks. I watch as the cops charge into the motel. I’m tempted to turn back, to go rescue Craig while I still can. But it’s too late. The officers flood into the motel, some running up the stairs, breaking down doors. The scene gets smaller as I drive further away.

Kenny McCormick stops in front of Room 212. He picks up a backpack left in front of the door. I watch as he rifles through it. He won’t find anything interesting in there. Everything of worth is behind the door. But if Craig has already escaped, I sincerely hope he's far away. Kenny kicks open the door and charges into the room.

My eyes flick back to the road. I observe the black asphalt and white painted lines beneath the tires of the car. Then I look back up. And I wish I didn’t. Tears drip down my face. This time, I don’t wipe them away. I suffer through the tears and torment of my broken heart as I track Kenny’s movements as he races down the stairs. His mouth moves, shouting at his officers. There are gunshots. He darts around the side of the motel. My eyes fly back to the road only to immediately to return to the show behind me. They’re all tiny specks now, but I make out Craig’s tall figure as he’d apprehended by Officer Kenny McCormick. Craig thrashes, doing anything he can to break the officer’s grip on him. But it’s too strong.

Kenny shoves him to the hood of his cop car, cuffing his wrists behind his back. I don’t need to see Craig’s look of confusion behind his mask to know it’s there. I can feel the swell of realization that I betrayed him he must be feeling. I watch him as his struggling stops. His movements slow. He slumps over in defeat. Because I left him. I left him to fend for himself. And he knows it.

Now my eyes are pouring over with tears as I look forward. Rivers gush down my cheeks as my sobs fill the silence of the car. I want to turn back. I want to turn back and beg for forgiveness. I want to be back in Craig’s comfortable arms, where we can take on the world together. But I left behind all of that when I left him behind. Now he’ll hate me as much as Kenny does.

My eyes flick back to the rear view mirror as the car slows to another stop at a red light. Craig ducks into the back of Kenny’s cop car, shoulders slouched, fully cooperating because he has nothing left to fight for. I took that all away from him. Kenny makes a waving gesture. _Roll out. Our job here is done._ He gets back into the car and drives back in the opposite direction, taking Craig with him. A scream wrenches from my lungs. I scream until my voice is gone, gone with Craig, gone with Kenny. Green light. My foot presses down on the pedal. I say Craig is my life, but if he really meant that much to me, would I have left him behind so easily? I can’t describe my pain. All I know is that it fucking hurts. A whole fucking lot. It’s unlike anything I’ve felt before.

I keep my eyes on the road. I cry. And I feel like I’m dying. This is death. This pain is what death feels like. I should’ve known. I should’ve known that nothing good starts in a getaway car. I slam my fist into the steering wheel, throwing a tantrum at nothing but myself. Slow violins play in my head. I want to scrape out my brains through my nose because of the infuriating noise. My own mind hates me for leaving Craig behind. _How could you do something so despicable?_ it asks. _How could you just leave him so selfishly like that? When all he’s ever done is care for you? What have you turned into?_

I turn a corner. I don’t look back. I have nothing to look back to. I wipe my running nose on my sleeve. My eyes sting from the hot tears that continue to flow out of them. I stare cold and hard at the road ahead of me. Quietly, my raspy voice cracks as I try to speak.

Into the night air, I hoarsely whisper, “Goodbye, Craig.”


	9. Epilogue

They say the best of times happen before you have to commit your worst of crimes as a form of revenge God brings upon you for all the pain and destruction you caused in the world… They were right.


End file.
